Sunday 18^th December

So lovely to be home

So busy to be home…

We have spent a couple of wonderful nights at Katy and Jeff’s, with the darling small children, all full of fun and cleverness and love.

Yesterday we went to a fabulous 70^th birthday party near Bothwell, in a marquee on the lawns of a beautiful old house.  There were about 130 guests – I knew four; Pete knew one hundred and twenty four.  Pete did very well remembering people from the snows of yesterday; I did very well getting to know a whole new tribe.

After the lunch, I drove us to Sendace, the lovely little Headlam farm on Meadowbank Lake.  James had left the caravan set up for us but we arrived there after dark, around 10.00pm (it was a long long lunch…) and Pete and I had an entertaining time traipsing to and fro with long connecting cords to get electricity from the pump station.

The caravan was very cosy, notwithstanding the slight list to the left.  I had a moment of deep shame when I burst into tears at the sight of a quite small and young huntsman spider roaming the walls.  (Oh not so brave…)

We drove into Ouse for a hearty breakfast at the roadhouse, then went back to drench sheep and chase them around into different paddocks according to…well according to the colour of the wool and the state of their shorn-ness.  (I think…) 

All a long world away from Sailing2XS!  Bronwen and I did have some boat-y time cleaning James’s little runabout.  It has been stored in a farm shed and has provided boundless merry entertainment for a generation of possums, which have pooed, scratched, tumbled and rioted amongst the fittings.  We armed ourselves with hoses and buckets of soapy water and – improvement!

Back to Tales of Our South Pacific

The South Pacific islands, and sometimes the villages on larger islands, seem to have been dealt out amongst the religions like a pack of cards.  They all co-exist quite amicably, and, what seems more remarkable to us, is that they have kept a lot of their ancient beliefs very comfortably alongside whatever brand of Christianity has come their way – Catholics, Seventh Day Adventists, Church of Christ, Anglicans, Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the whole gamut of quirky brands and beliefs.  They still absolutely believe in black magic, in appeasing their local gods of nature, in all manner of superstition and tradition.

Come to think of it, even small villages would sometimes have more than one religion happening at once.  Sunday services would occur simultaneously, with the congregations singing, in their beautiful harmonies, at each end of the village, more or less in competition.  Pete and I think that Christianity is so successful in the islands because the people just love to sing.  Services usually last two hours or more, and 75% of the time is spent in Hallelujah!  Praise the Lord! in glorious harmony.  The sermons are all along the same lines – be kind to one another!  Or so we gathered… We sat through a few services, conducted by very lively and animated young Father Keith, or Father Eustace, mostly in local tribal language, or in Pidgin, and be kind to one another seemed to be the main theme.  Fair enough, couldn’t agree more!